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With the surfacing of the Sahara-Birla diaries, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with other politicians, has been charged with allegedly receiving crores of rupees for favours from the Sahara and the Birla groups.
While the Central Vigilance Commission, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Income Tax Department sit on their hands waiting for orders from the top echelons on how to proceed in such a delicate situation, here’s a lesson from history – when a similar case threatened to disrupt Indian politics – and how it went down.
Remember the Jain Hawala diaries that created a political storm in 1995-96?
When the Hawala diaries came to light in 1996, tremors were felt across party lines. Hawala traders SK Jain and his three employees were interrogated by the CBI after a tip-off, only to discover their khaatas (accounts).
A total of Rs 65.47 crore was allegedly transferred by the Jain middlemen to 115 politicians and public servants between 1988 and 1991 to influence government tenders, mostly in the power sector. The CBI also alleged that the money was being used to fund Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists in Kashmir.
Some other big politicians embroiled in this scandal were:
Everybody was in a sticky place, just a few months away from the general elections. The then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, his three Cabinet ministers, leader of Opposition LK Advani, governors of two states – you name it. And yet, in 1996, Indian politics still had a moral compass.
The day allegations were levelled against BJP stalwart Advani, he resigned that very evening as a Lok Sabha MP – months before he was chargesheeted. He went on record to say that he would not enter the House again till his name was cleared by the courts.
Eventually, Advani along with every single other politician who was chargesheeted in this case, was cleared of all charges.
Two decades later, came...
In October 2013 and November 2014, the CBI and the I-T Department raided the offices of the Birla and Subrata Roy-led Sahara group of companies, respectively. They discovered handwritten notes and Excel sheets of payments made to various chief ministers and MPs, running into crores.
The CBI and the I-T department sat on these documents for almost a year till an NGO, Common Cause, approached the Supreme Court in November 2015 regarding a probe into the Rs 115 crore paid by Sahara to politicians and the two big payments made by Birla.
This is the main difference between the Sahara-Birla diaries case and the Hawala diaries case. While the latter was more sketchy about the identity of persons and amounts transferred, the Sahara-Birla diaries have enough proof for an exhaustive investigation and a defence in court already.
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